Negotiating Group Identities in Multicultural Germany: The Role of Mainstream Media, Discourse Relations, and Political Alliances

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This book scrutinizes the media portrayals of (ethnic/religious) minorities in Germany, encompassing the fields of public affairs, media effects, political communication, multiculturalism, populism in the media and politicized uses of collective identities. It compares the political discourse (Bundestag plenary protocols) with the mainstream discourse (mainstream press) in Germany over the sample period of 2009-2015, and explores a multi-layered debate from different perspectives by combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Moreover, this research intends to detect, analyze and connect the dots between recurrent themes, news stories, actors, events and ideologies within the delicate debate on minorities in Germanys multicultural society. The mixed-methods approach includes content analysis, template analysis, relational discourse analysis, latent class cluster analysis and multinomial logistic regression. The interdisciplinary approach of this research presents various aspects of social sciences, such as media and communication studies (agenda-setting theory), social psychology (social-identity theory), media sociology (discursive power), political science (right-wing populism) and anthropology (race and ethnicity). This extensive research is meant to contribute to existing political efforts and academic studies, in order to fully grasp the dynamics of German immigration and integration policies.

Reviews

Deploying an impressive combination of methods, this study examines discursive struggles in German newspapers as well as in the German parliament. While some commentators praise (or loathe) Germany for its political correctness and welcoming attitude, David Abadi demonstrates decreasing inhibitions to associate Muslims, ethnic minorities, and refugees with extremism, criminality, or terrorism. -- Justus Uitermark, University of Amsterdam
This book is a stimulating and intelligent analysis of the portrayal of migrants in Germany. The discrepancy between a more rational debate in the German legislature and executive and a somewhat sensationalist discourse in the media based on news values is dysfunctionalwhat we need is a reorientation of mass media towards normative goals of the rational public sphere. -- Kai Hafez, University of Erfurt

Author Bio

David Abadi is a PhD graduate in the social sciences from the Institute for Media Studies at the University of Leuven, Belgium, where he has been researching political alliances, media discourses and social identities across Germanys multicultural society. Prior to his academic research, he has worked as a news media analyst for a leading international broadcaster, evaluating the coverage on global politics, EU public affairs, migration and integration policies as well as diaspora communities in Germany. He has also contributed to various ICT projects for multiple corporations in the fields of web intelligence analysis, (social) media monitoring and digital marketing research.